I tried Fitbit for a month, and taking it off was the best decision I've made

My partner offered me his old Fitbit when he got his replacement,
which the company had shipped free after he emailed them saying
his had worn away on the edges.

I said I'd try it on for kicks.

(A Fitbit is a wearable fitness tracker you wear every day,
like a watch.)

It was great at first. I was taking the stairs more often at
work, walking outside to make phone calls, messaging back and
forth with other friends who had Fitbits, and even joining in on
the occasional Weekend Warrior competition, a minimarathon you do
with your friends to see who can get the most steps in one
weekend.

10,000 steps

I got my first warning that Fitbit wouldn't work for me on my
second day wearing it, though I didn't realize it at the time. I
was walking along when suddenly my wrist began to vibrate
violently. I looked down to see the band flashing "10,000" in
bright white numbers as diagonal stripes crisscrossed across the
rectangular screen.

My next thought turned toward my meals. If my Fitbit didn't know
what I was eating, how could it truly assess how fit I was?
Again, Fitbit was way ahead of me — its food tracker (another
section on the dashboard) allows you to enter what you've eaten
just as the exercise tracker allows you to enter what activities
you've done.

Tally, tally, tally

My
exercise over two weeks.Erin
Brodwin

Tallying all of my food and workouts from the past 48 hours took
me about 30 minutes. Not so bad.

But in the days ahead, I couldn't get it out of my mind. When I'd
reach for a granola bar in the office kitchen, I'd think about
entering it in the food tracker.

After yoga each night, I'd think about typing it into the app.

All this logging and calculating was, quite frankly, really
depressing.

Each of my actions came to be less about doing something I
enjoyed — from enjoying the crunchy, sweet deliciousness of a
midafternoon snack to sweating it out at a candlelit yoga class —
and more about how it would weigh into a bigger, calculated view
of my overall "fitness."

And constantly measuring myself up against my friends — one of
whom runs regular marathons and consistently ranks No. 1 on my
Fitbit friend list — made me feel like nothing I was doing was
ever enough.

Plus, I found myself engaging in ridiculous behaviors, like
walking back and forth to the bathroom at work, just to get in a
few extra steps. Most often when I'd realize I didn't have enough
steps at night, I'd find myself wandering around my tiny
apartment in a slapdash effort to reach the 10,000-step
milestone.

It was insanity, but I was too wrapped up in it to care.

A few days ago when I took off the hand-me-down Fitbit to shower,
it came apart in my hands. At first I was upset. Now I'm
relieved.

I still do some of the healthier things I learned to do with my
Fitbit, like taking the stairs at work and going for a walk when
I take a phone call. And while I'll miss that occasional
10,000-step party on my wrist, I feel a lot better without being
constantly reminded of exactly how many steps I've taken and
floors I've climbed.